40 years on, 'Return of the Jedi' is still up there with the best of 'Star Wars'

40年过去了，《绝地归来》仍然是《星球大战》中最好的一部

Hype is an overused word in Hollywood but in the context of "Return of the Jedi", it was entirely justified. For three whole years, planet Earth had been on tenterhooks, waiting to find out what Luke Skywalker's parentage meant for that galaxy far, far away, and whether there was any way back for Han Solo after being turned into a novelty coffee table.

炒作在好莱坞是一个被过度使用的词，但在《绝地归来》的背景下，它是完全合理的。整整三年来，地球一直提心吊胆，等着弄清楚卢克·天行者的出身对那个遥远的星系意味着什么，以及汉·索洛在被变成一张新奇的咖啡桌后是否还有回头路。

In the wake of "The Empire Strikes Back"'s famous cliffhangers, it's no surprise that "Return of the Jedi" was a box office smash. But not everyone was pleased with what "Star Wars" creator George Lucas and his director, Richard Marquand, had delivered.

在《帝国反击战》著名的悬念之后，《绝地归来》票房大卖也就不足为奇了。但并不是每个人都对《星球大战》的创作者乔治·卢卡斯和他的导演理查德·马昆德所带来的东西感到满意。

For some viewers "Jedi" was just the one with the teddy bears (sorry, Ewoks), a glorified toy advert with a saggy middle act and too much sentimentality. It was the one where Han, "The Empire Strikes Back'"'s MVP, spent much of the movie reduced to a mere bystander, where iconic bounty hunter Boba Fett went out in a blaze of embarrassment, and – in a barely plausible, out of nowhere twist – Leia turned out to be Luke's twin sister. What are the chances?

对于一些观众来说，《绝地武士》只是一个有泰迪熊（对不起，伊渥克人）的广告，一个美化的玩具广告，中间部分下垂，太多愁善感。在这部电影中，《帝国反击战》的最有价值球员韩在电影的大部分时间里都沦为一个旁观者，标志性的赏金猎人波巴·费特尴尬地走了出去，而——在一个几乎不可信的、不知从哪里冒出来的转折中——莱娅竟然是卢克的双胞胎妹妹。几率有多大？

All of these criticisms are justified. "Return of the Jedi" is undoubtedly the weakest of the original trilogy, and for the first 16 years of its life it was regarded as the worst "Star Wars" movie.

所有这些批评都是有道理的。《绝地归来》无疑是原三部曲中最弱的一部，在它生命的前16年里，它被认为是最差的《星球大战》电影。

And yet these things are relative, because 40 years and eight films later, there's no question the sixth instalment of the Skywalker Saga is up there with the best Star Wars movies. At the very least, it beats the prequels, "Solo: A Star Wars Story" and the movies' current nadir, "The Rise of Skywalker", hands down.

然而这些事情都是相对的，因为40年后，八部电影之后，毫无疑问，天行者传奇的第六部与最好的星球大战电影齐名。至少，它轻而易举地击败了前传《索洛：一个星球大战的故事》和电影目前的最低点《天行者崛起》。

Related: Star Wars movies in order

相关：星球大战电影按顺序排列

Getting "The Empire Strikes Back" to the screen had been a torturous process for George Lucas. Effectively the world's biggest independent filmmaker, he was betting "everything I owned" on the movie being a hit, and he came perilously close to running out of money on several occasions. When "Empire" became a runaway success, however, all those concerns evaporated. That's clear from the ambition of "Return of the Jedi", where everything is bigger – often exhilaratingly so.

将《帝国反击战》搬上银幕对乔治·卢卡斯来说是一个痛苦的过程。实际上，他是世界上最大的独立电影制作人，他把“我拥有的一切”都押在这部电影的成功上，有几次他差点没钱了。然而，当《帝国》获得巨大成功时，所有这些担忧都烟消云散了。从《绝地归来》的野心中可以清楚地看出这一点，在这部电影中，一切都变得更大——通常如此令人兴奋。

Luke Skywalker's home planet, Tatooine, has been a mainstay of "Star Wars" since the original movie but it's never been a more exciting place to visit than it is here. Ruled by "vile gangster" Jabba the Hutt – himself a wonderful creation – this wretched hive and scum and villainy is a feast for the eyes, packed with action figure-ready alien races who've regularly cropped up across the franchise ever since.

卢克·天行者的母星塔图因自第一部电影以来一直是《星球大战》的中流砥柱，但它从来没有像这里这样令人兴奋。由“卑鄙的黑帮”赫特人贾巴统治——他自己就是一个奇妙的创造——这个可怜的蜂巢、人渣和邪恶是一场视觉盛宴，挤满了准备好行动人物的外星种族，从那以后他们经常出现在特许经营中。

This variety continues in the Rebel Alliance briefing ahead of the Death Star II assault, in which the old guard are joined by new faces such as Admiral Ackbar (a Mon Calamari), Nien Nunb (a Sullustan) and Orrimaarko (a Dressellian). Despite barely appearing on camera, the latter was also immortalized in plastic as "Prune Face" – his closest brush with stardom was arguably this "Robot Chicken" sketch.

这种变化在死星II攻击前的义军同盟简报中得以延续，在简报中，新面孔加入了永生守卫，如阿克巴上将（蒙卡拉马里人）、尼恩·农布（苏鲁斯坦人）和奥里马尔科（德雷塞尔人）。尽管很少出现在镜头前，后者也以“梅干脸”的名字在塑料中永垂不朽——他与明星最接近的擦肩而过可以说是这个“机器鸡”小品。

The action set-pieces also rank among the best in "Star Wars" history. The whole Jabba sequence is the ideal palate cleanser before the story returns to the hurly-burly of the Galactic Civil War, but the pivotal fight above the Sarlacc is the notable standout. A spectacularly chaotic scrap, it harks back to the adventure serials that inspired "Star Wars" in the first place. It's still a shame what happened to Boba Fett, though.

动作场景也是《星球大战》历史上最好的。在故事回到喧嚣的银河内战之前，整个贾巴系列是理想的味觉清洁剂，但沙拉克上方的关键战斗是最突出的。这是一个极其混乱的片段，它让人回想起最初激发《星球大战》灵感的冒险系列。尽管如此，波巴·费特的遭遇仍然令人遗憾。

The much-imitated Speeder Bike chase is a glorious excuse for Lucas to recall his youthful penchant for fast cars, while the space battles really are out of this world. Indeed, Lucas's in-house effects team at Industrial Light & Magic excelled themselves so much with their maelstrom of A-, B-, X- and Y-wings – not to mention the new armored space station even more powerful than the first dreaded Death Star – that it arguably remains the big screen's best ever example of model-based, pre-CG space battles.

备受模仿的飞车追逐是卢卡斯回忆他年轻时对跑车的嗜好的一个光荣借口，而太空战真的不在这个世界上。事实上，卢卡斯在工业光魔公司的内部特效团队凭借他们的A翼、B翼、X翼和Y翼漩涡超越了自己——更不用说比第一颗可怕的死星更强大的新装甲空间站了——它可以说仍然是大银幕上有史以来最好的基于模型的前CG太空战斗的例子。

In fact, "Return of the Jedi" always looked so good that there wasn’t much Lucas could improve when he gave the film a digital makeover for 1997's Special Edition and the 2004 DVD release. Compared to "A New Hope"'s augmented X-wings and "Empire"'s subtle cosmetic touch-ups, the new song-and-dance number (complete with a tour around the hottest victory parties in the galaxy) and the surprise cameo for the prequel model Anakin Skywalker, Hayden Christensen, felt like change for change's sake.

事实上，《绝地归来》看起来总是那么好，以至于当卢卡斯为1997年的特别版和2004年的DVD发行对这部电影进行数字改造时，他没有太多可以改进的地方。与《新希望》增强的X翼和《帝国》微妙的修饰相比，新的歌舞表演（包括在银河系最热门的胜利派对上的巡回演出）和前传模特阿纳金·天行者海登·克里斯滕森的惊喜客串，感觉像是为了改变而改变。

With the thawed-out Han more of a bit-part player – he barely even gets to fly the Millennium Falcon – "Return of the Jedi"'s dialogue lacks the snap of the more quotable "Empire". Nonetheless, the studious Luke Skywalker finally gets to fulfill his destiny as the savior of the galaxy, and come the final act, his journey certainly lives up to the billing. That owes a lot to Ian McDiarmid's scenery-chewing performance as the trilogy's antagonist-in-chief, the new-look Emperor. For his brief appearance in "The Empire Strikes Back", Palpatine was played by an unlikely chimera of actor Marjorie Eaton, the voice of Clive Revill and the eyes of a chimpanzee. And then who can forget the pivotal lightsaber duel on the Death Star.

解冻后的韩更像是一个小角色——他甚至连驾驶千年隼的机会都没有——《绝地归来》的对白缺乏更值得引用的《帝国》的快照。尽管如此，勤奋好学的卢克·天行者终于完成了他作为银河系救世主的使命，在最后一幕，他的旅程当然名副其实。这在很大程度上要归功于伊恩·麦克迪阿梅德作为三部曲的主要对手，新面貌的皇帝的咀嚼风景的表演。在《帝国反击战》中短暂亮相时，帕尔帕庭由演员马乔里·伊顿扮演，他有克莱夫·雷维尔的声音和黑猩猩的眼睛。然后谁能忘记死星上关键的光剑决斗。

Subsequent 'saber battles may have been faster and more intricate, but few can compete with the emotional stakes of this battle for the souls of two generations of Skywalker. When Darth Vader eventually redeems himself by chucking his boss down a reactor shaft, it's one of the most powerful moments in the entire saga – that you're saddened by the death of a character who, just moments earlier, was the (second) baddest guy in the galaxy hints at more emotional depth than "Star Wars" is usually credited with.

随后的“军刀战”可能更快更复杂，但很少有人能与这场争夺两代天行者灵魂的战斗的情感赌注相抗衡。当达斯·维德最终通过把他的老板扔进反应堆轴来救赎自己时，这是整个传奇中最强大的时刻之一——你为一个角色的死亡感到悲伤，就在几分钟前，他还是银河系中（第二）最坏的家伙，这暗示了比《星球大战》通常认为的更多的情感深度。

But beyond everything else there's one thing that sets "Return of the Jedi" apart from every other movie in the canon – its fully functioning ending.

但除此之外，有一点让《绝地归来》有别于正典中的其他电影——它功能齐全的结局。

Yes, the story has since been continued in "The Mandalorian" and the three sequel movies, but for 32 years, the triple whammy of Luke earning his Jedi stripes, the destruction of the Death Star and the death of Palpatine were a proper full stop. ("The Rise of Skywalker" tried to do a similar job but – like the movie as a whole – the ending was simply a rehash of past glories.)

是的，这个故事在《曼达洛人》和三部续集电影中得以延续，但32年来，卢克获得绝地条纹、死星毁灭和帕尔帕庭之死的三重打击是一个恰当的句号。（《天行者崛起》试图做类似的工作，但就像整部电影一样，结局只是过去辉煌的翻版。）

"Return of the Jedi"'s conclusion brought Luke Skywalker's arc to a satisfying close, but – as subsequent movies and TV shows, not to mention decades' worth of non-canon books and comics, have proved – it also offered up possibilities. After "Return of the Jedi", "Star Wars" could have gone anyway it wanted to. But even if the franchise had left it there, it would still have stood up as outer space's greatest happily (almost) ever after.

《绝地归来》的结局给卢克·天行者的弧线画上了一个令人满意的句号，但正如后来的电影和电视剧所证明的那样，更不用说几十年来的非经典书籍和漫画了，它也提供了可能性。在《绝地归来》之后，《星球大战》本可以随心所欲地发展。但是，即使特许经营权把它留在那里，它仍然会成为外层空间最伟大的快乐（几乎）从此以后。